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Soaring like an eagle
Jordan Besaw offered a Boy Scout handshake, saying it's a symbol of helping one another. That's a Boy Scout ideal that he's taken to heart -- and he's turned it into a community-wide service project that's one of the many steps he's taken in an effort to earn the rank of Eagle Scout.
Jordan, 15, organized and led a coat and blanket drive, aimed at keeping everyone warm during the winter, that culminated in a giveaway incorporated into a recent Community Outreach back-to-school event.
As his accomplishments brought him ever-nearer to an Eagle Scout service project, he'd wondered often what he'd do. Inspiration came in the form of a catastrophic weather event. On Nov. 30, a huge snowstorm blanketed the Midwest, calling attention to need for warm coats and other protection from the cold.
Jordan and other family members traveled to Kansas City that day, to pick up one of Jordan's brothers, James, an 18-year-old student coming home from college in California. When James arrived, he was dressed in shorts, a testimony to the dramatic difference in weather he'd left to that he encountered on his arrival.
The trip was long and slow, due to the storm, and on the way back home the family talked about what such a trip might be like without coats -- recognized that some folks out there, including children, might be without them during such a storm.
"Two or three weeks later, he was still bringing it up," said his mother Jeanne Besaw; so, at his family's urging -- his parents, Jeff and Jeanne, his sister, Jessica, 9; and his brothers, James and Jason, both of whom are Eagle Scouts as well -- he set out to see how he could make a difference and bring warm coats to those in the community who might need them.
He contacted several local agencies, including the Ministerial Alliance, the Vernon County Ambulance District and many others, and ended up working with Community Outreach as a way of getting the coats to those who may need them.
The Troop 42 Eagle Scout candidate enlisted the help of his fellow scouts as well.
Boxes were designed for coat collection and set up at the local Wal-Mart to collect used coats in good condition.
That's when the project truly blossomed into a community event.
"People were going in and buying new coats," a welcome surprise. The next day, many people came back again, some to buy more coats for donation; others to drop change or paper money into the box as well.
"They never set out to collect money," Jeanne Besaw said, so the task at hand was to do something appropriate with the $300 inadvertently collected through the coat drive. The group went shopping for blankets, ending up cleaning out the aisles of twin blankets from several local stores.
After the collection, used coats were washed and packaged, to ensure the kids would receive items in ready-to-wear condition.
That was one of the hardest and most tedious aspects of the project, Jordan said. His cat was attracted to the soft piles of clothing, and had to be continually chased away. The items it had soiled then had to be rewashed and prepared so no allergens would be on the coats.
There were other times, too when it was a difficult task, especially given the fact that Jordan is autistic. Communicating with the many people it took to accomplish the project was doubly difficult for him, but he was up to the challenge, coping by communicating in writing more often than not.
His autism has been a lifelong challenge. He didn't learn to read until he was 11 years old, but now reads constantly. Home-schooled, he has nearly completed high school already, his mother said.
When the project culminated in the Aug. 2 back-to-school event, Jordan took the lead, handing out the blankets and coats himself, flanked by some other troop members who volunteered.
The troop gave out 130 coats and 75 new blankets. When the supply was exhausted, Jordan and troop members also made sandwiches for the volunteers.
The troop hopes to make the project an annual event, and Jordan agreed he will bring his expertise and helping hand to the effort in the future as well.
As for Jordan's quest to become an Eagle Scout, some steps do still remain. He'll have to finish his notes and submit them to regional scouting authorities for review, and several steps of a review process will take place.
The best thing, though, was a moment during that Aug. 2 giveaway, when two young boys, asked what they want to be when they're older, pointed at Jordan and said they wanted to be Boy Scouts, like him.
Jordan smiled.